Archive for the ‘Well Being’ Category

Many of us stress during the summer months about how we look, which gets mixed up with how we feel, act, and think. Many of us, too, turn to food to feel better if we’re feeling down rather than dealing with the core issues that affect our thinking. If you’re caught in a yo-yo diet pattern, or are an emotional eater, using food as a drug to block your inner work, you can stop. In order to help you break unhealthy habits and get on track to a healthier you, learn a bit more about how food is affecting your body, mind, and soul.

Food as Drugs
Foods actually have a bigger effect and work faster on your body than drugs. For example, it takes several weeks for Prozac to build up in your system to increase the serotonin level in your brain. Sweets like chocolate or cinnamon rolls with frosting can increase the serotonin levels in your brain in just minutes. High-fat, high-sugar foods release natural opiates in the brain just like heroin. The only difference is the amount.

The problem with the use of food as a recreational drug is that it sets up a never-ending cycle. Depression and anxiety can cause people to eat to feel better, but mostly people end up feeling worse. When that happens, people start to eat again to feel better and the cycle is on. Weight gain, fatigue, and more depression are natural side effects of this vicious cycle.

Another common example of this cycle at work is when people blast their bodies with caffeine and sugar. When you ingest such powerful compounds, you’ll probably feel energized for a bit and then in a short while, you’ll feel tired and sluggish and need another caffeine or sugar blast. This cycle is quite difficult to break.

It is my opinion that no one will ever lose weight permanently until the emotional reasons for eating are resolved. Only then is it possible for people to learn to notice how food actually makes them feel – and can actually do something to develop healthy patterns that trump the negative.

Sugar
Hundreds of years ago, people ate no sugar. Heart disease, diabetes, and cancer can be traced to increases in sugar. These diseases were virtually nonexistent in primitive cultures. They begin to show up about 20 years after primitive cultures begin eating refined carbohydrates.

In his book Sweet and Dangerous, Dr. Yudkin sites numerous examples of many cultures where it was shown that sugar was a more likely cause of heart disease than fat. The Masai and Sumburu tribes of East Africa have almost no heart disease, yet they eat a diet high in fat (mostly meat, and milk, but no sugar).

And, there are plenty of health comparisons between Americans and other Western cultures, too, which you’re probably aware of. The French diet is higher in fat than the American diet. French people have lower rates of obesity and heart disease than Americans. The French eat approximately 5.5 times less sugar per capita than Americans.

Refined sugar has been stripped of all its nutrients and robs the body of its nutrients during the process of digestion. In order to digest and metabolize sugar, the body has to use its own mineral reserves of chromium, manganese, cobalt, copper, zinc, and magnesium.

Our bodies have not developed the ability to metabolize large amounts of sugar on a daily basis. When sugars or highly processed carbohydrates are eaten, they are digested almost immediately, and the flood of sugar is released directly into the bloodstream. In response to the increase in sugar, the pancreas secretes insulin. Known as the fat storage hormone, insulin is designed to restore blood sugar equilibrium by taking excess sugar out of the bloodstream and storing it in the muscle tissues or liver (called carbo-loading) or moving it into fat storage.

Sugar has been proven to destroy the germ killing ability of white blood cells for up to five hours after ingestion. Sugar reduces the production of antibodies, proteins that combine with inactive foreign invaders in the body. Sugar interferes with the transport of Vitamin C, one of the most important nutrients for all facets of immune function. Sugar causes mineral and enzyme deficiency and sometimes causes allergic reactions. It neutralizes the action of essential fatty acids, thus making cells more prone to invasion by all viruses and microorganisms. Also, cancer cells feed directly on sugar potentially stimulating tumor growth. During World War II, when sugar consumption declined, the number of cases of adult onset diabetes also dropped – sharply.

Break the Sugar Cycle
By all means, avoid sugar when you can. Choose food wisely. Make healthy meals together as a family and with friends. Exercise. Drink plenty of clean water and herbal teas. Eat fresh foods low in fats and sugars. Avoid bingeing and starvation diets. Plan meals carefully and you will find you have more energy to do the things you love with your loved ones. And, be sure to do the inner work necessary to discover your true reasons for poor eating habits you may have developed over a long period of time. When you deal with your emotional habits in a healthy way, you’ll feel better equipped to deal with your consumption habits, too.

There is a terrifically simple story told by many different workshop trainers featuring the town ‘fix it’ man. You know this man – he’s the old local who was known to be able to fix anything.

His story goes like this: In the middle of winter, the boiler in the elementary school would not work. Everything possible was tried in order to fix it so the kids would be warm while in class. Finally in desperation, the ‘fix it’ man was called to come in a look at the problem. After he was told about all the efforts that were made to fix the boiler, he walked to his toolbox, took out his hammer and walked back to the boiler. Then, without any warning, he took his hammer and tapped gently on a valve. Instantly the boiler started back up again and continued to run smoothly without hesitation. The ‘fix it’ man packed up and went home.

The school received a bill a week later from the ‘fix it’ man for $1000. They were of course taken aback, and referred the matter to the superintendent, who then phoned the ‘fix it’ man and asked for an itemized statement. How could he possibly have charged $1000 when all he did was tap his hammer once on a valve? When the itemized bill arrived, it noted very clearly that he charged $1.00 for the hammer tap and $999 for knowing exactly where to tap.

This is a perfectly simple example illustrating that it’s important to know what to change, where to change, and how to change.

Many of the folks I work with have tried to create changes in their lives by changing jobs, relationships, cars, locations, style, and many more elements of our seemingly complicated lives. It is fantastic to have knowledge that you need a change, but it is completely different to have the awareness that directs exactly what or how to change. (And, remember that John Overdurf reminds us that all we are is change. We are changing all the time. Evolution is good. Then, of course, there is the fear of change. But that’s a different story.)

The best way to change your mind is by changing your negative thought patterns. We can see with scans that whatever our mind pays attention to actually creates a super highway of neurons and dendrites to support those thoughts, positive or negative. The mind doesn’t discriminate here.

Stop and assess for a minute. Are you paying attention to anxiety? Fear? Why not change your mind and add a positive force to your life?

Wouldn’t it be much better to pay attention to possibilities rather than focusing on deficits? What could be and what is rather than what is not?

Your mind uses thoughts to create the way in which you interact with reality. Your thoughts can be used to build or destroy. They are powerful.

People from all areas of life who are ready to acknowledge that life involves problems and are willing and ready to get busy to do the hard work collaborate with me to help create solutions and permanent positive change. Working together, my clients learn to recognize their thoughts or pictures they are making as a powerful force for change and how to use them to create the future they desire. The kids I work with are especially quick to get this technique and use it to their advantage.

Acknowledge the storm
Your mind can be like a wild, out of control storm. It will do what it has rehearsed or has always done which is often not what you intend. If you are spending a lot of your energy just trying to control the storm, how much does that energy really benefit you overall? How can you change the comforting pattern of doing (or thinking) the same thing over and over again? (Hint: you can’t.)

The mind—our monkey mind, as one trainer calls it—jumps all over the place. One thought leads to another and soon we’ve forgotten our original goal. The question is, how do we tame the mind? One way is to develop possibility thinking. I know, I know. Many of us have gone to every workshop or Tony Robbins training, or read every book or watched the Secret many times, and still we think we haven’t been able to control our thinking.

All the information learned from these sources is helpful, however, if you haven’t gotten your life under control or in a place that is suitable or comfortable to you, it may be that you have had a lot of negative circumstances or situations in life that haven’t been resolved. If you have taken one or two seminars or trainings in positive thinking and 30 years of anxiety or depression or trauma, what do you think is going to win? What is your brain paying attention to—the superhighway of negativity or the one-day of positive training?

In working with individuals or in teams via my workshops, I always discover that folks wouldn’t even be seeking me out if they were able to consciously change their thinking or behaviors. And also with advances in neuroscience, we know we have to change the negative superhighway that is actually now observed and recorded in the brain.

There are many factors that prevent people from achieving their full potential. Fear is the biggest deterrent I see. It comes in many shapes, forms, and sizes. Fear paralyzes and destroys. It can creep into the deepest core of human potential and freeze creativity. Then it can generalize and get rooted in and through thoughts and action.

It is my life’s purpose to help as many people as I can to embrace change. The current wisdom truly is all we are is changing. By embracing personal growth and making life a true adventure offers an awakening of your full and total potential. Getting unstuck from anything negative and moving towards and bright exciting future by shaking old beliefs loose to develop your unique self is empowering.

Ask yourself , how would your life improve if you could focus on what you want? What is your higher purpose? The only limits I see are if you are committed to staying stuck in your old thoughts and beliefs and thus patterns. There are many ways to change. You can start by realizing you are far more than you think you are and may have been led to believe.

Ready to move forward?

For many of us, basic needs were not met when we were children. For many, still, our basic needs are not being met as adults. In order to evolve and self actualize, to unlock our true potential, we’ve probably got to do some serious inner work.

Remember that Maslow believed that educators should respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self actualized being. If we were all taught to recognize our potential from our earliest years, we could achieve just about anything. The following list provides some keys to unlocking potential in us all, and speaks to the educator in all of us.

1. Teach people to be authentic, to be aware of their inner selves, and to hear their inner feelings and internal voices.
2. Teach people to transcend their cultural conditioning and become world citizens.
3. Help people discover their vocation for life, their calling, fate, or destiny. (This is especially focused on finding the right career and right mate.)
4. Teach people that life is precious, that there is joy to be experienced in life. If people are open to seeing the good in all sorts of situations, life can certainly be viewed as worth living.
5. We must accept people as they are, and help them learn their inner nature.
6. Help assist others in securing their basic needs. This includes safety, belongingness, and esteem needs.
7. Refresh true consciousness by teaching people to appreciate beauty and other positive forces in nature and in life.
8. It takes control to improve quality of life in all areas. (Controls and boundaries are helpful to achieving goals, while complete abandon in this regard might not necessarily help evolution.)
9. Teach people to transcend trifling issues. Assist them in approaching serious problems in life including suffering, pain, death, injustice.
10. Become a good chooser. Practice making good choices.

Think what a fabulous planet (world, community, home) we could create if we were all focused on unleashing our true human potential!

Is it possible? Well, probably – but first, we’ve got to understand how we humans operate on a very basic level.

Many people have heard of humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs. He developed a theory of personality that has influenced a number of different fields, including education. This theory accurately describes many realities of personal experiences.

Humanists focus upon potentials. They strive for an upper level of capabilities. They seek frontiers of creativity and the highest reaches of consciousness and wisdom. Maslow calls this level “self actualizing person, a fully functioning person or a health personality.”

In Maslow’s theory of needs, all of our basic needs instinctive (just like animals). Humans start with a very weak disposition that is then fashioned fully as the person grows. If the environment is right, people will grow straight and beautiful, actualizing the potential(s) they have inherited. If the environment is not right (news flash: it is mostly not!) they will not grow straight and beautiful. Maslow’s hierarchy offers five levels of basic needs. But beyond these needs, higher levels of needs exist, including needs for understanding, aesthetic appreciation, and purely spiritual needs. We humans cannot move through the stages of needs until the demands of the first (or supporting) need has been satisfied.

So, what are these basic needs?
1. Physiological: These biological needs consist of oxygen, food, water, and relatively constant body temperature. They are the strongest needs because if deprived, we would not thrive.

2. Safety: When all physiological needs are met and are no longer controlling thoughts and behaviors, the needs for security can become active. Adults have little awareness of their security needs except in times of emergency or periods of disorganization in the social structure (such as rioting). Children often display the signs of insecurity and the need to be safe.

3. Love, affection, and belongingness: When the needs for safety and for physiological wellbeing are satisfied, love, affection and belongingness can then emerge. Maslow states that people seek to overcome feelings of loneliness and alienation. This involves both giving and receiving love, affection and the sense of belonging.

4. Self Esteem: When the first three classes of needs are satisfied, the needs for esteem can become dominant. These involve needs for both self-esteem and for the esteem a person gets from others. Humans have a need for stability, a firm base or foundation, high level of self respect, and respect from others. When these needs are satisfied, the person feels self-confident and valuable. When these needs are unmet, the person feels inferior, weak, helpless, or worthless.

5. Self Actualization. When the first four levels of needs are satisfied, then and only then are the needs for self actualization activated. Maslow describes self actualization as a person’s need to be and do that which the person was born to do. For example, a musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write. When unmet, restlessness ensues. The person feels on edge, tense, lacking something.

Maslow believes that the only reason that people would not move well in the direction of self actualization is because of hindrances placed in their way by family or society. He states that education is one of these hindrances. Maslow states that educators should respond to the potential an individual has for growing into a self actualized being.

Interested in learning more? Spend some time online learning more about Maslow and his hierarchical theory. Then, think about times in your life where your basic needs may have gone unmet. What did you do? Think? Believe? Feel? How did you move forward? Or, are you stuck?

“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.”
– Tori Amos, pop/rock singer

Some of us dive right into the inner work we know we can truly benefit from while others are more hesitant to dig up (and through) the past. Counseling, self help guides, even creative endeavors and exercise can assist us along our personal paths. And, this process of uncovering and healing all takes time.

Sometimes you can get stuck traveling down this path to healing, and a healthy, helpful boost is what you need. When you feel stuck, which is natural and common, your mind can be compared to a computer that uses software programs. These software programs are filled with your emotions and beliefs that combine together to make up what you think and feel. And, sometimes this software can get stuck in a loop and stop working the way we desire.

It seems that trauma and negative emotions can combine with a certain thought or feeling and create a locked neural pathway in your brain, trapping the negativity in your brain and body. This is how many define post traumatic stress, which seems daunting to deal with, but if you make time to approach your issues with the appropriate tools, you can and will heal.

Take a moment out of every day to assess where you are, where you’ve been, and where you hope to be. With an open mind and heart (and the right tools) you can make big changes that help you heal.

So, what does brain plasticity really mean? And, why is this an important, intriguing concept?

My clients ask me all the time what does plastic or plasticity mean when referring to the brain. Is my brain plastic? No. Of course not.

Plasticity or neuroplasticity is the lifelong ability of the brain to reorganize neural pathways based on new experience. So, as we learn and acquire new knowledge and skill, there is actual change in the brain that represents the new knowledge. This ability of the brain to change with learning is what neuroplasticity refers to.

Now, embrace this fascinating concept. In the past it was believed that as we aged, our brain’s networks became fixed. In the past couple of decades, however, an enormous amount of research has revealed that the brain never stops changing or adjusting.

You might say “all we are is changing.” What a concept! – one that brings us back to how important it is to truly be aware of what you are paying attention to or focusing on as much as possible. If you are fixated on anger or fear, your brain will stay in that mode.

Neurons that fire together, wire together. Neurons that fire apart, wire apart. So if you are stuck on fearful thoughts, guess what are you actually wiring together in your brain. If you are constantly thinking fearfully, your brain will most likely be stuck in that negative space.

Now, consider this. The longest time a strong urge or emotion can coast biochemically is a mere 90 seconds. For such emotions to last longer in your brain and body, you’ve got to keep fueling that fire with constant, negative internal chatter.

Your nervous system has to be reminded to keep firing the same circuitry over and over again. In order for emotions and thoughts to persist, your system has to be re-engaged either through internal stimulation (conjuring up images and pictures in your mind, engaging in self talk) or external stimulation that serve as triggers and anchors from the environment around us (seeing a particular person or place). And, the stronger the feeling you have, the greater the number of circuits are simultaneously activated.

This can be good news to the degree that you are focused on creating good feelings with strong, positive thought patterns. So, don’t focus on the negative: when you think positively, you positively change your brain for the better.

When you find yourself feeling stressed, you can neutralize the damage by engaging in this simple exercise that begins with several deep breaths.

Sit upright in a comfortable chair with both of your feet balanced on the floor. Breathe deeply and slowly from your diaphragm (not just the top part of your lungs). Notice when you start to relax. If you want to change your physiology a bit, move around a little, wiggle your toes, take another breath. You’re settling in for even deeper relaxation! Now, try to focus your attention on your heart. Try “breathing” through your heart. (Think about this for a minute so you can get a visual that works for you.) Note the sensations your body, breath and brain experience through this sequence..

Now go ahead and think about something entirely opposite from what was the initial cause of your stress – maybe a happy moment or fun time in your life. As you fill your mind with a pleasant thought (or memory, or visual) this will actually help to change the fight or flight response in your brain and body. Fight or flight response changes the biochemical mix in your body – swapping for a pleasant thought will help alter your mind/body chemistry, too.

In this exercise, I like to think about what and who I am grateful for – people, places, things, situations that make me feel good. This not only brings a smile to my face, but helps make more positive connections in my brain that then allow me to deal with stress triggers in a healthier way.

Go ahead…try it now!

Do you know what stress is? Where it comes from? How it manifests? If everyone experiences stress the same way?

One thing is certain—stress affects our attitudes and can certainly affect our overall health and well being. How we perceive a situation causes us to have an emotional reaction to it. Many people look at the outside event as the real cause of stress, when the experience of stress is actually occurring on the inside. Common responses to stress can often be tension, anxiety, anger, and frustration. These responses can then throw off our mental and physical self, pushing us—and keeping us—out of balance.

Two people in identical circumstances may respond to stressful situations or negative triggers in totally different ways. One may react outwardly, while another may withdraw and get tired. Many experts agree that 75 percent (or more!) of the unhealthy habit of continued, excessive overeating is caused by emotional stress. This means many of us are using food to cope with our feelings, blocking our emotions in an attempt to feel better when triggered by something negative.

There are many methods for helping people reduce stress and create emotional balance to march towards positive patterns and behaviors that reinforce overall health. I attribute my success in helping clients alter unhealthy patterns by teaching them emotional management skills. My clients learn how to effectively change their responses to almost any stressful situation or negative trigger. Once my clients learn how to achieve a relaxed state and maintain that relaxation, change work becomes more comfortable, empowering, and effective.

You’ve got the power to change the negative to positive. You can minimize the impact a potentially stressful situation has on your well being. You can achieve the peace of mind you’ve always dreamed of having.

The subconscious, or, your unconscious mind, loves patterns and repetition. What’s familiar to your mind resonates instantly. When it’s a positive pattern, great! You can achieve many, many things. But, when it’s a negative pattern or thought that’s repeated over time, then you become your own worst enemy and it’s harder to meet challenges, to excel, to achieve.

Modern research has discovered that our emotional states are produced by a couple of things like how we hold our bodies (our physiology) and the mental pictures we focus on. Did you know that we have approximately 44,000 to 66,000 mental pictures or thoughts a day? That’s a lot of content to experience, process and react to.

The one primary way we can change our emotional states is to change our physiology or how we are holding our body. Exactly how we are holding our bodies can trigger every emotion that we have ever experienced—how you carry yourself throughout the day has the potential to trigger feelings like being sad, mad, happy, or confident. As soon as we train our body to be in the physiology we want, we can instantly feel the corresponding emotion!

My Mental Toughness and Success Moment CDs are each designed specifically to help you get into and stay in the physiology and emotional state you want each and every day. My CDs are designed with specific suggestions and imageries that teach you to develop a mental toughness and with repetition (or, as I like to say, repeatedness). Take control your states of mind—positively and effectively!